Mr Darwin's Shooter Read online

‘Your pistol box might stand on its end.’

  ‘True but where?’

  ‘In that corner of the bookshelf that is empty.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the gent, ‘but that bookshelf is the preserve of Mr Stebbings’ library. There are books that fit in that place.’

  ‘Where are those books now?’ asked Covington.

  ‘All around the ship.’

  ‘And will they be always around the ship?’

  ‘No. They come back each day. And so the space is filled.’

  ‘But some others will always be a-going out?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Then there will always be a hole ready,’ said Covington, ‘and another just the right size for you to fit your head in. It would not do for me, but your head is not such a great enlargement as mine.’

  ‘The better for thinking, say I,’ said the gent.

  ‘And whatever else bumpology wants of it, eh?’

  ‘Bumpology—indeed.’

  ‘It is not thinking that I do with my knob,’ replied Covington. ‘What is the point? Us Covingtons are not made for thinking. Ask me and I shall do a job for you, though. Like this board that gets in your way. It can be done quick smart with just a hammer and awl.’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps.’

  The gent was getting too much of Covington altogether. Sometimes there was never enough air in a ship even for one.

  Covington did not wish to go.

  His hand strayed to a stone ink-jar on the table and he closed his fist around it, feeling the coolness inside. ‘I want to show you my hand,’ he said.

  ‘Let me see your copperplate another time. I have seen a lot today.’

  Covington felt a darkening inside him, prelude to a faint, and told himself to force the day to its very end, for he had that power, to unfold his advantages and take his chances to the peak of his blood.

  So he dipped a quill, and pulling over a sheet of paper he duplicated a piece of writing he saw in front of him. What it was, and whether Darwin continued his praise thereafter, Covington never knew, because at this pass he fainted clean away.

  His head hit the table. He made a sticky mess for all to see. Mr Wickham came in, and Capt came in, and they called for Ash, the gunroom steward, and Fuller, Capt’s steward; and those two oxen carried Covington by the arms and legs to the opposite end of the bark, where he was draped in his hammock above the coalhole and left to sweat. Darwin did not visit him, but sent a steward with eucalyptus drops to freshen Covington’s air, and dose him with more opiate, which peopled his dreams.

  When Covington came to his senses it was morning and Phipps was there to visit him, peering into his face so closely that the first thing Covington saw was a small mite creeping through the tangles of the catechist’s curly black beard.

  ‘Cobby old cuff,’ he felt his shoulder being shaken.

  ‘Where have you sprung from, John Crow?’

  ‘Right from where I sit, here on this chest. I have recited half the gospels to you and you gave me your responses all over the place. You had the Temple Mount at Sinai and the Israelites were never in the Red Sea at all, ’cause you had them in the Dead Sea getting baptised.’

  Covington told him his surprise that it was already the next day. ‘It must have been my ghost doing all that talk.’

  ‘You are a great knock, Rosin-the-bow. It is the third day since they put you here, and you have been raging like a hurricane and sweatin’ like a river.’

  ‘I am as cool as you like,’ Covington asserted, and swung to the deck. But when he touched the damp timbers he collapsed in the legs. Phipps hoisted him back up and told him, in answer to a question Covington posed him, that there had been no punishments listed; that as far he knew Covington was Gent’s missy now, because Gent had speculated to Lieutenant Rowlett that he might send for an order of trowsers for him, to be cut from cotton duck, to replace the ones that had been torn by Covington in the forest.

  ‘You are hurt by this, John?’

  ‘Hurt? Nay. You take me for a fool. I have fallen to the deck in a foul wind from a height of fifty feet and broken several bones. That is what I call hurt.’

  ‘Good, then.’

  ‘This other is not hurt, young sinner.’

  ‘Do you have a fear of what I want, then?’

  ‘No, for if I had I would have expressed it before now— because you have been going around this bark like a lovesick seagull with your eyes on that gent for the best part of our whole voyage, and what have I said about it before? Nothing, as I recall.’

  ‘Nay, but your eyes have condemned me sometimes.’

  ‘Eyes are but mirrors betimes.’

  ‘Very well. But will you say what makes you so sour?’

  ‘Well, I can hardly say. Maybe it is that I have come here to watch over you, and that gent, who you brought so close to your desires, has neither sent nor asked nor given you a half farthing of his thoughts.’

  ‘Then I thank you. But he has sent medicines.’

  Covington showed a physick. It was a thick glutinous mulch reeking of sulphur, and Phipps was humbled.

  ‘I must take care to be charitable with him,’ he said sincerely.

  ‘I love you, John Phipps, you are the same as my own kin to me, even in our storms.’

  ‘Now it is my watch,’ said Phipps, bunching his beard in his fist on hearing the bells.

  ‘John?’

  ‘Yea?’

  Covington reached out and took his friend’s hand. ‘Did you pray for me, John?’

  ‘I did that, and I believe you were pulled through by a power so great that we are plain sinners to have bad words.’

  The next to call was Volunteer Musters bringing his news. He said there was a great argument between Capt and Darwin while Covington thrashed in his hammock. It happened two nights before. At the end of it, Darwin declared, he would no longer dine in Capt’s cabin, but would join the gunroom for his gut-pudding. The gunroom was made gloomy by the division, for their voyage drew its mood from the wedding of Capt with Darwin, and the gentry were like children when their parents scrapped, uncertain of their place. By the evening of the next day the two had patched it up again. So what was the fight about?

  ‘You don’t like to hear,’ said the child Musters, looking at Covington with sly contempt.

  ‘Why “don’t I like to hear”?’

  ‘Shan’t ever tell you.’

  Covington leaned over and twisted Musters’s ear.

  ‘Quick, or I’ll make you cry.’

  ‘And I’ll have you flogged.’

  ‘I am strong for that.’

  ‘It was slavery.’

  ‘Whose slavery?’

  ‘Why, slaves’ slavery. Whose do you think?’

  ‘And you were on our captain’s side,’ said Covington, letting go of Musters’s ear. ‘You are all for slaves.’

  ‘Positively so,’ he said, rubbing it, ‘otherwise I am a mutineer.’ As a parting shot Musters said: ‘And if I was a captain I would have you hanged, Nob Head.’

  ‘And I would have you served for supper, King Dick.’

  They sailed clear of Bahia letting go the lustrous sights and stinking fevers of the place. Covington was weak as water but up and about on the deck and doing his scrubbing. Mr Wickham came by and told him to cease and take his rest by order of the Capt. But when Covington turned to seek Capt’s eye he saw Mr Darwin looking at him. So he tugged his forelock in that direction.

  They nudged south for Rio in sparkling seas before gentle winds. And soon Covington’s head was freshened, his hopes grew fat, and he wasn’t the only one in such a mood, for the whole crew was singing as if not just Covington but all his brother-tars were given the kissing crust by order of the highest.

  Wonders began in those Brazilian waters. Dust blew on them over the sea from Africa. They came into a mirrored bay. The sound of insects could be heard from the forest a mile away. Creatures Covington had not observed in boyhood voyaging now sprang plain to his eye. Ther
e was a fish that inflated spherical. A cuttle-fish that glowed in the dark. The whaleboat came alongside with stones in sacks, taken from an island, and Covington saw men pass curious shapes down a companionway. He felt a jealousy to know the meaning of the cargo, but was too weak to go ashore where measurements were made, specimens were taken, and eggs were stolen from seabirds’ nests. He was told by his shipmates that all hands were employed in making April fools, and felt like a fool himself. Indeed when midnight came they played true to their word, and nearly all the watch below was called up in their shirts, carpenters for leaks, quartermasters because a mast was sprung, midshipmen to reef topsails. Even Darwin was tricked by being asked if he had ever seen a grampus, a creature that didn’t exist.

  By listening, this is what Covington learned. That though they were afloat on the sea all was one with the land, and islands were mountains, and time stretched vaster than could be dreamed. Such knowledge ran through their bark and all seemed touched by this buzzing of news aboard that was never heard in the ship of Capt King. It was not like excitement, for there was no special time when it surged and faded, it was just a present thing, such as pride or joy. It came from the wedding of Capt and Gent, in their many disputes, hard-won agreements, and excited observations of wind, tide and stars.

  Capt with his fine-made chronometers and weather instruments and loud voice postulated to the Derbyshire gent whether the world was made this way or that, and the midshipmen sang True or False, that rocks are a lid on the earth, let us have wagers, and when the Pot Boils the land spews Hot Coffee (their name for FitzRoy).

  Darwin passed Covington once or twice, in his hurry about his work: ‘I see you are better, Sailor Covington?’

  The manner of the naturalist was full of knowledge and understanding. Say that now he had his eye on Covington, for sure. They talked about Bedford, the tradesmen who preached, and all manner of texts that Covington knew by heart, and how boys raised on Bunyan loved to split their meanings as smartly as the old Hebrews. Covington was not entirely well yet, but grew stronger for the asking after him. Although about his trowsers no more was said, and he would have to give the matter a nudge if he wanted satisfaction.

  Covington joined Volunteer Musters for his turn at the bowsprit. Musters’s hour was the middle watch when the rest of the world slept. They were among the stars. Chirpy as a cricket Musters rattled off bearings. Capt and Gent were above, wakeful and talkative. Between them it was all, ‘I do declare!’ and ‘Nay, it can’t be so!’

  Covington shifted back to hear them better. Wee Musters became cranky with such eavesdropping and gave him his frown. Musters’s family was neighbour to Darwin’s uncle in Derbyshire, giving Musters special understanding of Darwin, naturally, indeed an exclusive contract to all information on the matter. The voices of those lords of stars and insects came and went. Covington sometimes drowsed. The ship surged and lifted. On a great beam reach it was as if they sailed through heaven, propelled by a creaking and shuddering down the length of timbers.

  Musters made a sound of keening in his throat as boys do when pretending deafness, raising himself like a grasshopper on spindly legs. He considered it unseemly for one of Covington’s low rank to witness dissension in his betters. ‘Whatever,’ said Covington, bidding the boy goodnight, making his way to his place above the coalhole where he rose and pitched, and rose again slung in his hammock, and wondered about himself unto sleep, considering that to rise was a requirement of the gospels, and that the rising overcame the dying.

  What of your fortune? wrote Mrs Hewtson when they arrived in Rio under the Sugarloaf rock, and were given their mail. Are you hard after your learning, my big man, Tom Noggin? Covington took her letter to the rail and hung over the lapping waters committing the few pages to heart, remembering the crowded kitchen with its amber light, the clean scrubbed faces of the sprogs waiting for their Pa to come home and embrace them, after which he would turn and hail Covington-in-the-corner. Mrs Hewtson knew Covington’s heart; he knew hers; and there was no place for him in that world of Mill Lane and the few streets nearby. He wanted to boast he was through to his next expression of life, but on turning the reverse page of her letter wondered if he was—for he found himself weeping, learning that his own letters were not arrived in England yet, and that even after all this time Mrs Hewtson believed Joey Middleton to be still alive: Your Joey, how is he, you must be all so grown?

  What Covington recalled of Rio from boyhood days was a goat with a bell; a priest in scarlet robes they threw stones at; glorious Marys in gold leaf that made him ashamed to be a watery Congregationalist; a seawall under a thorny tree; and a gathering of poor naked black children to joy with ‘Hosay’—with Covington striking his fiddle while Joey danced and spat, and rubbed at the cobblestones with his broken shoe and danced till his knees ached.

  Covington went ashore where the cutter landed him, near the great cathedral. He wasted no time taking interest in his surroundings any more, nor in the rioting of his mates as they sang and boasted and fought their way forward onto land and through doorways and were gone. Nor in the louring looks of Phipps, who was in a mood to go catch them a cockfight in a place halfway round the bay. There was no pretence in Covington’s isolation from that charmed company of saints and devils any more. He treasured his understanding of what it meant to be at liberty on the face of the planet. He was making an end to his life as a sailor, if he could.

  In a tailor’s shop Covington obtained his satisfaction according to a law fitting his station. It said that if a gent paid for the repair of your trowsers, then that same gent acknowledged your service and liked it well, and would call upon your service again. Covington paid for the repairs with his own coin, acquiring a scrap of paper marked with a cross as proof to the man who spoke of recompense.

  Before Covington returned to his ship, however, he went up a lane and onto the brow of a hill, where a walled villa caught the breezes. He kept looking behind him, braving the presumption of what he did. It was an address written on a card in Mr Earle’s fine hand—an introduction to a buyer and seller of birdskins and butterflies, animal bones and who knew what else besides. Covington clapped a bell and listened to the rustle of banana leaves overhead and heard footsteps coming to enquire his business.

  ‘I am here to see a Mr Beskey,’ he spoke through a hatch.

  A question was asked of Covington in Portuguese.

  ‘I shall tell you my vendiand my comprar,’ he answered, ‘if you let me in.’

  A bit more of such banter and they let him through.

  Back on the Beagle at nightfall, Covington waylaid Darwin, telling him what he had done about those trowsers that had been promised him for his trouble before he went sick.

  ‘You took this upon yourself?’ The gent showed irritation and a grudging regard as Covington displayed his patches.

  ‘I did,’ Covington produced his receipt. ‘I can be constructive,’ he added, passing a hand over the bumps on his head that promised his fate, ‘no matter what is said of me.’

  Darwin allowed a smile. ‘Well, I am getting to know you, sailor.’

  Covington slightly bowed. ‘It is just a mending job and very cheap.’

  The son of the wealthiest man in Derbyshire promised to fetch the boy a Spanish dollar from his cabin, for which Covington might cover the repairs done, and—the gent clearing his throat, emphasising the cost—equip himself with a new pair of trowsers cut from black duck as well. Perhaps two? ‘A dollar shall be plenty,’ Covington spoke his gratitude, ‘for three, if I choose my cloth careful.’ And so they parted.

  An hour later Covington was sent for and reached the poop cabin quick smart.

  ‘Sailor Covington. I have your money for you.’ Covington caught the coin in the air and clenched it in his fist. Once more he spake his thanks, beholding this boyish red-faced and cautious benefactor surrounded by inks and papers. That was all, it seemed, and yet Covington was not quite ready to quit the cabin and nor was Darwin ready to let
him go. Both stared. The gent shifted himself in his small chair and said:

  ‘Well? Are we finished?’

  And Covington said: ‘I cannot say.’

  Gent steepled his palms as if to say, ‘Nor can I.’

  Covington knew the importance of the next thing even before the gent said it, for he was a twitchy hound, and used his nose—preferment hanging thick in the air—where-upon Darwin cleared his throat and tried to make everything considered seem impromptu, which was hard for him, since his thoughts went ahead of him like the bow-wave of a rowboat in calm water and smacked Covington in the nostrils.

  ‘Why are you grinning?’

  ‘’Cause I am ready.’

  ‘Sailor Covington.’

  ‘Yoi?’

  ‘When the time comes, will you carry my guns?’

  Covington thumped the chart table and wedged himself face to face with his benefactor—leaking spittle from the corners of his mouth. ‘Upon my oath I will. Your guns and your bird-baskets and what else besides.’

  ‘Not so fast,’ frowned the gent—Covington lacking nothing to complete a picture of devotion. ‘You are talking about too much work.’

  ‘That is nothing to me.’

  ‘I said just to carry my guns. And then only when the captain allows it.’

  ‘But you have far greater need for a servant than guns.’

  ‘There is much work that I have not fully determined as yet.’

  ‘I shall help you decide.’

  ‘Possibly.’ The gent could barely disguise an edge of derision. ‘What pray is your skill in natural history?’

  ‘Nothin’, except I can skin a rat and prob’ly a beetle besides. It is a rule that follows—the more work a servant does, the better work there is to be done.’

  ‘You make it sound as if the tail wags the dog.’

  ‘Nay, but I am loyal. Ask anybody going back to our two ships, the South Sea Castle and the Adventure. I am an old Patagonia hand, as they say.’

  ‘You jumped in the water, I heard.’